<h1>5C. Create a learning environment</h1>
<p>The last standard of practice in the cycle involves creating a performance and learning culture
within your project team, across your organization and partners, and among conservation
practitioners around the world. A performance and learning culture at these levels is
important to ensure that all parties learn and benefit from your team's experience. Although
this is listed as the last step, it really is something you need to cultivate right from the start.
To effectively apply these standards, you need to work in a project environment that
promotes learning and adaptation over time. This means that you, your team, and your
organization should be constantly reflecting, seeking feedback, and providing feedback. That
feedback could be formal or informal and might come internally from your team members or
other staff members in your organization. Alternatively, it might come from external
mechanisms, such as <strong>evaluations</strong>, which assess a project against its own stated goals and
objectives, and <strong>audits</strong>, which assess a project against an external set of process standards,
such as the ones outlined in this document. In creating a learning environment, it is important
to be open to outside opinions that can give you fresh and insightful perspectives.</p>
<p>Creating a learning environment is not easy. It requires leaders and donors who understand
the need to reallocate scarce resources from immediate action to the long-term work of
adaptive management. It often requires enabling practitioners to take some chances and
question the conventional wisdom related to specific conservation tools and strategies. It
requires providing project teams with the institutional security that innovation and
questioning assumptions are valued in their organizations. And it requires a commitment to
share both successes and failures with other practitioners around the world -- to create true
<strong>communities of practice</strong>.</p>
Outputs for this standard practice include:
<ul><li>Regular feedback shared formally or informally.</li>
<li>Evaluations and/or audits at appropriate times during the project cycle.</li>
<li>Demonstrated commitment from leaders to learning and innovation.</li>
<li>A safe environment for encouraging experimentation and questioning the status
quo.</li>
<li>A commitment to share success and failures with practitioners around the world.</li></ul>
